


Houseguests and Fish

by Sarai



Category: Six of Crows Series - Leigh Bardugo
Genre: Hurt Kaz Brekker, Injury Recovery, M/M, Marya is recovering, Wylan Van Eck-centric, Wylan just wants everything to be normal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-06
Updated: 2021-02-06
Packaged: 2021-03-18 12:27:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29243568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sarai/pseuds/Sarai
Summary: Wylan and Jesper are settling into their life together when a very bloody Kaz arrives in need of a medik and a safehouse. They can provide both. The true challenge is keeping Marya from realizing what a grumpy criminal mastermind's presence means about her son's past.
Relationships: Jesper Fahey/Wylan Van Eck, Kaz Brekker & Marya Hendricks, Kaz Brekker & Wylan Van Eck, Wylan Van Eck & Marya Hendricks
Comments: 4
Kudos: 65
Collections: Week #2: Take Your Medicine





	Houseguests and Fish

**Author's Note:**

> TW: injuries (not too graphic but clearly present), mentions of blood

  
“So…” Wylan mused, peering into his teacup. He sat up in bed, the cup cradled in his hands. He looked into his teacup because Jesper slept better, as he said, ‘unencumbered’, and knowing he wore undershorts did nothing to distract Wylan from getting lost in the distractingly perfect curves of Jesper’s shoulders.

Much of Ketterdam had returned to normal in the past few weeks, the wild wrinkles smoothed beneath the blistering iron of normalcy, but Wylan hadn’t been sure where he fit before.

The markets were tentatively opening again and there were new luxuries available every day. Just two nights ago there had been thick pea soup with chunks of ham.

It was a little overwhelming, really. He had the feeling that the staff were afraid he would let them all go—maybe because he was a different and unpredictable boy from the one they had known, maybe because his father had been no kinder an employer than he had been a father. Whatever the reason, the past weeks, Wylan had often faced questions he didn’t know how to answer.

_Janszoon is taking customers again, would you like an appointment made? The tailor, Mister Van Eck. Your father said he was the best—or maybe you’d rather a different tailor._

He hadn’t asked about tailors. At first, he hadn’t even realized the housekeeper was trying to suggest that perhaps he would like to dress less like an urchin.

Now Wylan was the one with a difficult question.

“So,” Jesper repeated. He gave Wylan’s knee a nudge under the covers. 

“So… do you like living here?”

Inej was gone. The city was, slowly, opening up. He could leave. If Jesper wanted, there were places he could go, ships on which to book passage. Wylan would make sure he had all he needed to get home to his father, or to Ravka, or… or back to the Barrel. If that was his choice.

“I—”

A loud thump interrupted. Something, or someone, had just collapsed in the hallway.

Wylan froze—Jesper was already moving, grabbing his revolvers, pausing just long enough to tell Wylan, “Stay here.”

Just as Jesper reached the door, Wylan pulled open a drawer on the nightstand, fumbling for the knife he had stashed there. He wasn’t… good at this. He wasn’t good at fighting. But after his sojourn in the rougher side of Ketterdam, he didn’t feel right without some kind of defense nearby, some kind of weapon.

“Wylan!” Jesper called. “Need your help!”

Wylan gripped the knife as he burst into the hallway. 

There was Jesper, distractingly _visible_ , and a very bloody Kaz halfway in his arms. Even in the dim hallway, Wylan saw the dark, wet patches on Kaz’s clothing and the dribble of blood from his lips. Someone had given him a generous beating. Worst, though, was what Wylan _didn’t_ see: Kaz did not have his cane.

Kaz shivered as Jesper tried to help him up. He looked like he might vomit. 

The knife thudded gently on the carpet. Wylan judged the closest bedroom and threw the door open. It was a spare room, the bed unmade, no visitors expected. One had arrived, anyway.

Wylan draped Kaz’s other arm over his shoulders. Kaz groaned, his head lolling, as Wylan and Jesper carried him to the bed. Well, Jesper carried him. Wylan steadied him until they could lay him down.

“Jes, send for a medik. I’ll get bandages.”

Jesper nodded, but he remained, staring at the groaning, bloody man on the bed.

“Jesper.”

He startled, snapping out of his trance.

“Right! Right, a medik. We need a medik.”

Wylan used to keep his own supplies tucked under his bed—he realized someone had found it when they turned that room into a nursery. That his father had surely known…—but right now, Kaz needed help. Right now, Wylan grabbed a bucket and a few clean rags from the maids’ closet. 

Kaz looked awful, brow furrowed and jaw set, painfully pale where he wasn’t red with blood or blooming bruises. Wylan pressed rags to the places that seemed to be bleeding the worst. 

It was a bad time to be so sorely injured. Most of the known Grisha in Ketterdam had fled to Ravka. Others were in hiding. There would be no Healer to restore this. Whoever had beaten him down certainly knew that. 

“Medik’s on their way,” Jesper announced, bursting into the room.

“Good. Hold these.”

Jesper took over holding the rags—one on Kaz’s abdomen, one on his chest—while Wylan went to scrub out the basin and fill it with water. 

“Wouldn’t’ve thought you would know about all that, merchling,” Jesper commented when Wylan returned.

“Yeah, well—is that my father’s dressing gown?”

“No, prisoners aren’t allowed dressing gowns.”

Wylan snickered.

“I brought you something to wear, too. For when the medik arrives. He won’t need you distracting him with your gorgeous legs.”

“Jesper,” Wylan objected, blushing, even as he went to pull on the trousers. 

Kaz groaned loudly—definitely more in objection than pain.

Wylan tucked his nightshirt into his trousers. It could pass for a shirt, mostly; it would have been considerably more proper to grab a waistcoat, but he wanted to be here to help his friend however he could. 

He took over holding the rag over the weeping cut on Kaz’s chest. It was already soaking through.

“By the way,” Jesper added. He took a knife from his pocket, the same one Wylan had dropped earlier. “What’s this about? Were you going to prepare a cheese plate?”

“I… thought I might need a weapon,” Wylan muttered.

“You should’ve had one.”

“Oh, hush, you’re not funny.”

* * *

  
Kaz would need a few days to heal. In the meantime, he was a guest in a Councilman’s mansion on the Geldstraat—there were worse places to recover. Wylan informed the household guard that they had a guest who might attract unwanted attention, and they would need to be vigilant. He told the housekeeper that he was sorry for the mess. He explained to his mama that another of his friends would be visiting.

The last was the hardest.

“From school?” Marya asked.

It was a sunny morning—thinly sunny, but in Ketterdam, weak sun was worth enjoying. She had her easel set up in the garden. 

Wylan hesitated.

“Yes, Mama.”

Inej and Jesper went along with the lie, letting Marya believe her son met his friends the way any other good little mercher boy would: they were at school together. Would Kaz? Wylan doubted it. Maybe he would be too injured to speak.

Maybe Jesper would help Wylan send a letter to the very well compensated medik from last night and ask for a syringe and a nice opium syrup. To help Kaz rest.

Marya set down her brush and came to sit on the bench beside her son. She stroked his cheek, then took his face in both hands, tilting it, looking into his eyes. She did that sometimes. She looked for the son she left. Whenever she wanted to look, Wylan never stopped her. How could he, when his mama had her focus so fixed on him?

She picked up his wrist and wrapped her fingers around it.

“You should eat more. You’re too thin.”

“I’ll work on that.”

He ate plenty, but he had spent six months in the Barrel and had a lot to make up for. Besides, he was fairly certain he was growing! (Please let him be growing…)

Later that morning, Wylan went to bring up the matter with Kaz. 

Well, he went to check the dressing on his injuries. They could work in a chat around that.

The medik said both wounds came from knives. One was a stab wound and one was a slash, both generously deep cuts. The fact that Kaz managed to sneak up to the third floor despite them was impressive. A bit terrifying, but this _was_ Kaz Brekker they were talking about. 

Wylan knocked on the bedroom door.

“Kaz?”

When he didn’t get an answer, he knocked again, then peeked into the room. 

Kaz was awake. 

“I’ll change your bandages.”

“Like hell you will,” Kaz gritted out.

“The medik said it needed to be changed every day,” Wylan reasoned, going to clean his hands. The washroom connected to another bedroom, but that one wasn’t in use. If it had been, Wylan would have moved that person. No one ought to need to share a washroom with Kaz Brekker.

“Where’s Jesper?” Kaz called.

“Washing your blood off the the wall.”

Their reactions to those smears had been very different. Wylan was a mix of shocked and exasperated by the realization that Kaz Brekker, bleeding himself near to death, had climbed the house. Jesper had decided it had to be cleaned—“It looks awful, I’ll handle it!”—because no one else was going to take away the adventure of a chore that required hanging from a third-story window. (Wylan worried about that too, but Jesper said he would be fine. As long as he got a kiss for luck. Otherwise, who knew what could happen?!)

“Do you want to wait for him?”

Kaz hesitated. Then he shook his head. 

“Just get it done, Wylan.”

Wylan nodded. The wound was at Kaz’s side. He hiked up his shirt and rolled onto the other side, but when Wylan knelt on the edge of the bed, Kaz stopped him.

“No. From this side.”

Wylan walked to the other side of the bed, where Kaz could watch him. He knew Kaz didn’t like to be touched and removed the soiled bandages as carefully as he could. Neither spoke. Wylan felt he ought to speak, to say something to reassure Kaz, but Kaz didn’t seem to particularly need reassurance. The only words he could think of were apologies. And for what? Whether Kaz liked it or not, Wylan was helping. 

“Um, I’m… I’m going to clean this now.”

“Do it.”

“Sorry.”

Why had he done that? Why had he apologized?

Wylan dampened the cloth and wiped the area clean. There was some blood. Not enough to worry about. Kaz looked a bit like Wylan, he supposed, around the middle anyway, skinny and pale. After a moment he realized why Kaz looked so strange. He was like Wylan with his freckles erased. 

“I need to touch you.”

“You’ll find your fingers in your soup if you do.”

“The medik said I needed to test—to see if you feel feverish.”

“I don’t.”

Wylan was fairly sure he could do it without Kaz’s permission right now. Kaz was weak, no matter how he tried to hide it.

“I’ll be quick.”

When Kaz said nothing, Wylan pressed the backs of his fingers to Kaz’s skin. It didn’t feel hot. He held on just long enough to be sure.

Then he re-covered the wound. 

Neither of them spoke as Wylan bandaged the new dressing to Kaz’s side. Wylan went to scrub his hands again, then picked up the soiled dressing. Kaz had pulled his shirt down again.

“You would have died,” Kaz said just as Wylan’s hand touched the doorknob. “You would have died in the Barrel without me holding your worthless hand.”

“I know, Kaz.”

He hadn’t meant to take anything of Kaz’s dignity. Wylan thought Kaz was… well, terrifying. But tough as Grisha steel all the same. He had taken two serious knife wounds and a beating and still climbed three stories in the dark. 

Knowing Kaz only lashed out because he felt powerless didn’t make it hurt any less.

Wylan was halfway to the ground floor where he would drop the bandages in a bucket of watered-down bleach when he realized he had forgotten to ask Kaz about pretending they were friends.

* * *

Things continued much the same way for a few days. Kaz rarely left that bedroom, and remained his usually self; Wylan kept Marya away from him. He would be poison for her recovery. What surprised Wylan most was how Jesper seemed to avoid Kaz. But, considering how Kaz had sometimes spoken to Jesper, maybe that was just fine.

“What did you do this morning?” Wylan asked one evening. He sat up in bed, rubbing salve onto his hands. With Kaz, he was washing so much his skin had started to crack—and after the punishment they took in the tannery, Wylan liked the feeling of pampering his hands.

“I sat quietly and mourned,” Jesper retorted from the closet. Wylan already knew Jesper wasn’t hanging up his clothing. He never did. He sort of draped it over the edges of the hamper—a habit Wylan did not understand, but which he had gotten used to.

Wylan laughed. “Really, though.” He and Marya had gone to church together. Jesper was invited, but preferred not to join them. 

“Um…”

Jesper approached the bed at what Wylan could only consider a languid saunter, one that left his magnetic abdomen on display far longer than was necessary. Not that Wylan was complaining, he just had trouble bringing his thoughts around when Jesper handed him an object. Wylan put away the little pot of salve—in the drawer with his knife in case of emergency cheese plates—then took the object from Jesper and examined it for a moment.

“Is this a spoon?”

“It’s clearly a spoon.”

“It’s green.” It wasn’t painted, nor the color of any substance Wylan could think of except grass—damp and rich, striated. It still felt and smelled like metal, though. If he examined it in his lab, Wylan knew it would be chemically metallic. “You did this?”

Jesper nodded.

“How unique! That’s good work, Jes.”

“You think?”

“I think.”

“This is the kind of stuff I do by accident when I’m not paying attention.”

“This isn’t an accident,” Wylan replied. He held out the spoon to indicate. “Look at this, you didn’t just copy the colors from the grass, you took the shadows, too. The depth of color—this is artwork.”

“Artwork?” Jesper repeated—not incredulous, not arguing, just surprised. He hadn’t thought about his amazing abilities that way.

Wylan set the spoon aside. “Can I kiss you?”

“You can most definitely kiss me.”

So Wylan kissed him. 

“I’m glad you found a way to spend the time while you were mourning my inexcusable absence. I would’ve thought you would visit Kaz.”

Jesper looked away.

“But you don’t have to,” Wylan added. He stroked Jesper’s cheek gently. “Hey.”

“The day he showed up, were you really asking how I liked living here?”

“Was I?” Wylan thought back. That was right, he remembered now. He had only just asked when Kaz arrived. “Well, it’s… new. It’s a new situation for you. I want you to be happy.”

“As a general rule?”

“Hm?”

Jesper pulled Wylan close, tumbling both of them down to the sheets; Wylan laughed as he fell and tried to settle beside Jesper, but Jesper held him tight, keeping Wylan against him and pressing kisses to his neck, until Wylan was half-drunk on laughter and the wonderful feeling of Jesper, so warm and soft and gentle wrapped around him.

“As a general rule, my pretty tulip,” said Jesper, “when you have a guy half-naked in your bed, he’s happy.”

“I’m a… pretty tulip?”

“You’re the prettiest tulip!”

* * *

Marya Hendricks was not spying, but she lingered outside her son’s bedroom for a moment, listening to him laugh with his new friend. A boyfriend was a friend. A romantic friend should be a friend… too? First? 

It was better that way, whichever way it was.

Wylan had been a little boy when Marya was taken away and she knew he was not so little a boy anymore, but he was her little boy even as he had become a man, and that didn’t always make sense but quite a lot of things were so. They were lost in the sunlight through the window. Many of her memories were, lost, but she understood what happened around her. 

She continued down the hallway. The door she needed had a light on, as she had expected. She knocked.

“Come in.”

So she did.

The disheveled boy sat up in bed, his shirt rumpled, rings around his dark eyes. He expected Wylan or Jesper. Instead, here stood Marya Hendricks, unexpected again. Nearly everyone looked at her that way, asking what she was doing here. Wylan didn’t, of course. Jesper’s eyes asked the question sometimes, but not of her.

“You’re my son’s friend,” Marya observed.

The boy nodded. “That’s right.”

She closed the door behind her and she spoke softly. He placed a hand on something beneath the covers; he thought she was an enemy, a threat to him, or maybe he wasn’t sure what she was. Neither was Marya, really. What a person was was defined by their circumstances.

“You’re very bad at it,” she continued. 

Her son’s friend. He was very bad at being a friend.

He watched her, wary, with his hand on a hidden weapon. 

The power of that moment struck her. She had been in such moments before, though she imagined his weapon was a different one, he wielded it as all men did, the same way doctors held the syringe in a pocket while the weighed whether the patient would behave, the way her former husband held the pen languid between his fingers before signing. It was the power of a man who controlled the outcome but not the situation.

Down the hall a ways, Wylan and Jesper were laughing together. If not now, they would be soon. Marya folded her hands in front of her and regarded her son’s other friend. Perhaps Wylan had good taste in men and bad taste in friends. Perhaps—she thought of Inej—he had good taste with a fault.

“Wylan deserves better than you.”

“Wylan makes his own choices.”

Someone he knew showed up bleeding half to death. What else was her Wylan going to do?

Manipulators relied on others making the choices they wanted of their own apparent free will. Manipulators reached for their weapons when someone was outside their influence.

“You’re not welcome here,” said Marya, “if you treat him that way.”

Before this house was Wylan’s, it was Marya’s. Before Wylan belonged on the Council, he belonged in her arms. And she had enough clear days—enough days she saw the light through the window without being blinded by it.

She saw that Kaz did not believe her. He had his hooks in Wylan.

That wasn’t always bad. Not all hooks were bad. Jesper, too, was lodged firmly in Wylan’s heart.

But Jesper wouldn’t look at Marya and think, _I can make him do what I need him to do_ , not the way Kaz did now.

“Do you really think you hold more sway with him than his own mother?”

Ah. She saw that one land.

With a pleasant smile, Marya said, “Sleep well, Mister Brekker.”

**Author's Note:**

> I was thinking about how Colm Fahey doesn’t really see Kaz for what he is, because in Colm’s world people aren’t like that.
> 
> Marya Hendricks spent a decade side by side with a man who genuinely is as bad as Kaz pretends to be. Jan Van Eck’s widow knows exactly what she’s looking at.
> 
> (Ok so Jan isn’t *technically* dead, but he’s dead to me.)


End file.
